I sometimes worry that I will never be happy again. I feel like I will never truly be happy again in my marriage with the knowledge (and mind movies) that he has had sex with someone else. I don't know if I can spend the rest of my life faking it.

On the other hand, I love my husband more than anything. I cannot imagine living without him, and I am certain I would never be happy again if we divorced and he began a relationship with someone else. I don't think I could live with that.

Those are my only choices, and neither of them seem all that great. I want so badly to be able to reconcile, but how do I know I will be able to? It is pretty scary to come one here and see posts from people 3 years out finally calling it quits after realizing it is indeed a deal breaker....I don't want to waste either of our time like that if I am just going to continue to be miserable and it turns out to be a deal breaker. But like I said, I am horrified of the alternative.

I don't know what to do.

BS: 26, SAHM
WH: 29. Together 10yrs, married 6
3 kids 3 and under
DDay 11/21/13 Husband had ONS Aug. 2013 while living across the country temporarily for work.

Posts: 87 | Registered: Dec 2013 | From: United States

karmahappens♀ 35846Member # 35846

Posted: 7:08 AM, April 28th (Monday), 2014

IMO you need to spend the next 1, 2, 3 years healing yourself...until you know.

Trust me, if you get into IC and start making yourself healthy and emotionally strong you will heal from the A and not "need" to be married.

If you stay married it will come from a place of strength in yourself. You will see the work he has done and be comfortable creating a new life with him.

If you decide to leave you will also be coming from the same place of strength, just a different choice.

You are not wasting time by deciding, you are healing and working on yourself. That is never a waste.

My husband and I decided to R after 5 months. Even though I felt my decision was right,I still had crazy days I wasn't sure. Days I sat in my IC's office spewing hateful words and threats to leave.

She said when I was ready I would know. I know I made the right choice, I know the healing in me was needed to go forward with a life together.

I needed to love myself more and know I could do this on my own.

So take the needed time for you. Put R away right now and take the steps to heal you. Eventually you will come to a place where R/D will be a natural, easier choice.

You are so young, to be able to get this healing and strength under your belt now will prove to really help you lead a healthy, productive life going forward.

[This message edited by karmahappens at 7:08 AM, April 28th (Monday)]

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom”
Anaïs Nin
Me: 45
Him: 47
Dday 8/2007
We have R'd

Posts: 3909 | Registered: Jun 2012 | From: Massachusetts

mbbd♀ 41828Member # 41828

Posted: 7:13 AM, April 28th (Monday), 2014

I struggle with this as well. I think that the core of it, at least for me, is that I feel like I am betraying my own self respect. I am a strong woman yet this has knocked me to my knees in many ways. Your feelings of not being able to think of life without him caught my attention. I wish for you to think of him as a compliment to your life, one that you choose for yourself. He must earn his place there because you are worth it. If not, there is another, certainly, that can fill that spot if you so choose. Wishing you strength!

Posts: 87 | Registered: Dec 2013

sisoon♂ 31240Member # 31240

Posted: 7:47 AM, April 28th (Monday), 2014

Gently, JSS, you make some statements that you know what you'll be like in the future, but you really can't predict the future reliably.

I think most people are just getting their bearings back at 6 months out. Your head is above water, you can breathe, look around, figure out where you are, etc.

Most people get to a point where they feel certain enough to make a choice. As karma urges, the more you attend to healing yourself, the sooner you'll find that certainty.

I can't tell you how to make your choice, but I'm very, very confident that your best bet right now is to have faith in yourself to figure out what's best for you and to devote your energy to healing yourself.

fBH (me) - 70 (22 in my head), fWW (plainsong) - 70 (22 in my head), Married 45+, together since 1965, same sex ap
DDay - 12/22/2010
Recover'd and R'ed
I'm not an exemplar. I share my own experience because it's all I know.

Posts: 11130 | Registered: Feb 2011 | From: Chicago area

JustSoSad42♀ 41711Member # 41711

Posted: 12:33 PM, April 28th (Monday), 2014

I'm not really sure what to do to heal myself. I had tried talking to two different counselors shortly after Dday, and didn't really find it to be very helpful.

I feel like all I need is for the mind movies to stop. I can accept that it happened, I can accept that he is a good man who loves me more than anything, and made the worst mistake/decision of his life in a moment of weakness, I can accept that he has acknowledged the position he allowed himself to be put in where something like that can happen and has taken it upon himself to reinforce his own boundaries, behave like a married man when he is away from his family, etc. BUT I CAN'T TAKE THE MIND MOVIES!!!!

We were at a BBQ at a freind's the other day, and I looked across the yard at him holding our son, and my thoughts go like this: Look how freaking sexy my husband is, I love him so much. OMFG he had sex with someone else, that is so disgusting. And then come the mind movies.

I just need them to go away, and I don't know how to make them stop. I don't ask for them, I honestly don't go pain shopping and play them on purpose. It's like still snapshots of them just pop up in my mind.

I want to reconcile. I really do. I just hope that I can be strong enough to.

As far as my wording re: not wanting to live without him, it's not really a co-dependent sort of thing although I can see where it sounds like that reading online. I would be just fine without him, I know that. It's just that I don't WANT to be without him. I don't NEED him, but I do WANT him. The only thing I worry about with us hypothetically being apart, is him being with someone else. I feel like he is so great, that I would be so mad that this one stupid decision on his part lost him for me, and that someone else got to scoop him up. If that makes sense.

Cheating sucks.

BS: 26, SAHM
WH: 29. Together 10yrs, married 6
3 kids 3 and under
DDay 11/21/13 Husband had ONS Aug. 2013 while living across the country temporarily for work.

Posts: 87 | Registered: Dec 2013 | From: United States

JustSoSad42♀ 41711Member # 41711

Posted: 5:49 PM, April 28th (Monday), 2014

Bumping because I'd really like some more people to weigh in on how they handle this!

BS: 26, SAHM
WH: 29. Together 10yrs, married 6
3 kids 3 and under
DDay 11/21/13 Husband had ONS Aug. 2013 while living across the country temporarily for work.

Posts: 87 | Registered: Dec 2013 | From: United States

iwillNOT♀ 40605Member # 40605

Posted: 1:28 AM, April 29th (Tuesday), 2014

I don't know the answer, at almost 9 months out I am asking the same questions. A lot of change and healing has happened, but I still have those days where I just can't believe it and I think, how can this ever work? I wish I had a crystal ball to see the future so I could skip the effort and pain if it's truly a deal breaker.

When I start with the mind movies, I tell myself the following things:

He chose Me!
I Won, NOT her!
She (the OW) does NOT deserve any space in my mind!
He loves Me!
He's proving his love to me!

It takes time doing this every time the mental movies start, but it has helped to lessen the anxiety level and frequency of mine. I have been able to go longer periods of time without having a mental movie pop up. Hope this helps! :::hugs:::

I tackle the mind movies with logic. The OW got the WORST of my H. She got the worst moment of his life. She got my H's lowest self. She got insecurity, desperation, fear, lack of integrity, lies, and base lust. Lust that he acted on like a rutting animal with no more thought than if he were performing any other biological function.

I get his BEST. His most honest, hardworking, moral, compassionate, loving, kind, and intimate self. She never got any of him that was worth having.

And because of the work he's doing he has purged those bad, selfish parts of himself and is being a better H than ever before. I know he had to crash and burn before he could really fix himself...he would have never done his personal growth without this trauma, unfortunately.

As far as figuring out if its a deal breaker, I am staying and committed to R until our children are raised. (8 more years). I am fully vulnerable, honest, and loving...some days loving actions are difficult and I am honest with him. He has 8 years to make me want to stay, to heal our love and friendship. He's doing a good job so far so I am hopeful that TIME will be the answer to my sometimes "iffy" feelings towards him. Trust was destroyed in a moment....it will take years to rebuild.

We are heading towards five years from Dday and when I came to SI, wisdom shared was to wait at least a year before I made any life changing decisions. Best advice I ever got. Throughout the first year, the roller coaster was full of unpredictable ups, downs, plunges, etc.

I did not work with a counselor until almost a year out and it was to deal with the rage and the pictures in my head...the reactions I went through when I thought of OW.....and when I thought about my H betraying me for five long years.

Therapist taught me TFT which helped. I learned the STOP sign technique here....used to scream STOP over and over in my head when those thoughts would start and eventually, I could just picture a stop sign and my mind would change direction. It became habit.

And I read this statement below in one of the books....

"The immediate effect of that emotional recall flushes the system with the chemistry of that exact emotion - but it is not happening again. It is how we think about it that drives the emotion."

For me, understanding the immense pain and emotions I felt when I triggered was my body's 'trained response' to this trauma... and reading that the key was how I chose to respond was 'freeing'.

I was in control....not some crazy OW in another country....not my H....me. And I worked at healing and taking care of me...part of that healing was also figuring out what I needed to do to get rid of thoughts that hurt me.

I don't think being married or divorcing the WS makes a difference...the thoughts are in our heads and affect our hearts. I think we need to deal with them whether or not the WS is present....it is part of our healing.

Find what works best for you and spend this time taking care of you....the rest will fall into place and eventually you will know whether or not this was a deal breaker.

I can do this fairly easily, but not as easy as I want it to be when I trigger. I'm just tired of thinking about it so I just try to let it go. Being tired of being in pain can be an impetus to change.

However, I have resentment because I HAVE to do the Stop thing or the redirect thing. No one else gets pissed about this? that they have to do mental gymnastics to remain in the relationship? I realize we do this for ourselves and not our spouses but I'm pissed I have to do it.

He chose Me!
I Won, NOT her!

two years out I do not feel this way. I'm glad you do and only a couple months out! Our MC said I would eventually. Well that would be nice I guess but we'll see what happens. Someone said here the other day that we should be in a relationship that makes us grow and is a good place for us to sit while we grow. I guess I can say that. But as far as another person being some sort of prize - umm no.

[This message edited by rachelc at 9:15 AM, April 29th (Tuesday)]

his Dday: 2/10 but TT until 7/11
my Ddays: 1/12, 4/12 broken NC 12/12

me (WW/BS): 48
him: (BS/WH)52
4 kiddos in mid 20's

“Take action to change what needs changing. Take action to respond to your situation. Let the discouragement take ca

Posts: 6414 | Registered: Dec 2010 | From: Midwest

Mama3030♀ 42553Member # 42553

Posted: 9:28 AM, April 29th (Tuesday), 2014

I am going through similar feelings.

I have an "obsessive" personality anyways so that doesn't help.

I just keep reminding myself that my husband is in counseling, he is trying so hard, he is very remorseful. While I also have felt very weak for staying, I am getting to a point where I realize that I am also very STRONG for staying. It takes a strong person to try to forgive (not knocking anyone who leaves...that takes strength too).

Personally I haven't tried counseling yet (he goes on his own) but it would probably be helpful to both of us.

One thing I tell myself when I start to think about it is "move on forward, move on forward" :)

WH 42
BS (me) 33
3 kids- 6. 4, infant

Together 13 years, married for 8

DDAY 2/21/14

Posts: 43 | Registered: Feb 2014

Mama3030♀ 42553Member # 42553

Posted: 9:30 AM, April 29th (Tuesday), 2014

"No one else gets pissed about this? that they have to do mental gymnastics to remain in the relationship? I realize we do this for ourselves and not our spouses but I'm pissed I have to do it"

YES. I get VERY pissed. I almost got on antidepressants after this all happened and then I started to get really mad thinking "why the hell do I have to medicate myself...the problem isn't ME!! HE Is the one who messed up!"

It is really hard to let go of the anger. I haven't done it yet.

WH 42
BS (me) 33
3 kids- 6. 4, infant

Together 13 years, married for 8

DDAY 2/21/14

Posts: 43 | Registered: Feb 2014

RipsInMyChest♀ 41166Member # 41166

Posted: 9:30 AM, April 29th (Tuesday), 2014

Sorry for the t/j.....

However, I have resentment because I HAVE to do the Stop thing or the redirect thing. No one else gets pissed about this? that they have to do mental gymnastics to remain in the relationship? I realize we do this for ourselves and not our spouses but I'm pissed I have to do it.

Holy crap...YES!!!! I think of the mental gymnastics I have to do to stay and it makes me so mad. Some days I come to SI and it seems we are all kidding ourselves, twisting around self-help psychobabble in some sort delusional brainwashing. Total mind-f$&@!!!!!

Then, other days, I see the deep wisdom here. The strength it takes to live with love, empathy and compassion. To embrace the belief that we can learn from our mistakes. My therapist assured me people DO change....she wouldn't have a job if they couldn't.

two years out I do not feel this way. I'm glad you do and only a couple months out! Our MC said I would eventually. Well that would be nice I guess but we'll see what happens. Someone said here the other day that we should be in a relationship that makes us grow and is a good place for us to sit while we grow. I guess I can say that. But as far as another person being some sort of prize - umm no.

I feel the need to clarify what I tell myself. I do not look at my WH (or myself) as some sort of prize by any means. I apologize if I sounded that way, or if I appear overly confident for being only 10 weeks out.

The truth is... I'm not very confident at all. I use those words to stop my mental movies when they occur, to stop feeding the negative irrational thoughts in my own mind to bring me back to reality.

Personally, when my mind movies start, they trigger my low self esteem issues from FOO as well as the A. I understand that this is how I feel and may not be the case for everyone. I was gently trying to suggest positive feedback. I'm sorry if my reply offended anyone. That certainly was not my intention.

Rachelc, EVERY TIME I get upset about something, I get even more upset that I got upset about whatever it was in the first place. I get upset that I can't listen to songs on the radio (Did you know every single country song is about meeting someone at a bar and getting it on??) I get upset that I am affected by infidelity on TV shows...etc etc. I have a lot of resentment that this has affected my feelings about so many things. I was angry for the longest time that I couldn't even do laundry without wondering if these were the underwear she may or may not have touched, was this the shirt he was wearing while he shit all over our life together, etc. I even hate the tattoos on his upper thighs because now they just remind me that someone else literally sat on them. Disgusting.

I have tried the stop sign thing. To me it just feels kind of dumb, because I already had the thought, I know it's there, and even if I try to think about something else, I just feel ridiculous. (Not knocking anyone for doing that, if it works, that's awesome. I wish it worked for me. Maybe I'm not ready to do it right.)

I do take comfort in knowing that the OW is literally nothing to him. He doesn't even remember her name. So I know that I "won" and he has chosen me, and continues to choose me, and choosing me was never even up for debate for him. But it all still just effing blows! I am SO TIRED of this emotional craziness. I am exhausted emotionally, and the physical exhaustion of having a newborn and a 2yo and a 3yo doesn't help.

I am also finding that our HB appears to be over, which sucks. ( I had a very easy delivery so we were only out of the sex game for like a week post baby.) Last time we did it, I wasn't very into it. My mind was wandering too much, and then last night he wanted to, and I had every intention of it, but as he was getting in bed, I saw his bare junk and the thought of it having been inside someone else with no protection (not that a condom would have made it better i guess...) was just too much at the time. So I told him we couldn't. I hate this so much. I have just had a really rough couple of weeks with this, seemingly out of nowhere.

BS: 26, SAHM
WH: 29. Together 10yrs, married 6
3 kids 3 and under
DDay 11/21/13 Husband had ONS Aug. 2013 while living across the country temporarily for work.

Posts: 87 | Registered: Dec 2013 | From: United States

rachelc♀ 30314Member # 30314

Posted: 10:08 AM, April 29th (Tuesday), 2014

I was gently trying to suggest positive feedback. I'm sorry if my reply offended anyone. That certainly was not my intention.

oh heavens honey, you didn't offend me at all. I wish I was at your spot. But it's real for me so that's all anyone can say - is where they are at themself.

his Dday: 2/10 but TT until 7/11
my Ddays: 1/12, 4/12 broken NC 12/12

me (WW/BS): 48
him: (BS/WH)52
4 kiddos in mid 20's

“Take action to change what needs changing. Take action to respond to your situation. Let the discouragement take ca

Posts: 6414 | Registered: Dec 2010 | From: Midwest

LdyD♀ 42870Member # 42870

Posted: 10:19 AM, April 29th (Tuesday), 2014

oh heavens honey, you didn't offend me at all. I wish I was at your spot. But it's real for me so that's all anyone can say - is where they are at themself.

:::hugs::: I'm just trying what the MC suggested, I wish I was truly at that spot. I wish I actually believed the positive things! But... I don't. Not yet.

JustSoSad,
I had always told myself that if my spouse cheated it would be an instant, no questions asked deal breaker. And I thought this would be a black and white issue but I also thought it would never happen. But then it happened. And things weren't as black and white as I thought. Emotions make things gray quickly.

I am right at a year from D-day now and have seen many milestones come and go in my personal recovery. The first six months were awful and the first two I would consider extremely severe and I have never had any situation come close to being as bad. All of it does piss me off that I had to have nearly a year of my life ruined by my WW's selfish choices. It makes me pissed off to think that this situation hurt me more than even the death of my grandfather who I totally adored. It pisses me off in so many ways. But, with time, the stinging pain has worn off quite a bit and my FWW has done everything perfectly including being very remorseful, apologetic and ashamed. She is very thankful that I chose to R and not D.

But if there ever is another D-day, it will be a deal breaker and I have told her so. I won't allow myself to have to endure this much pain again. I just won't do it.